Among the things that never
seem to change in Florida: the Gators and Seminoles will always feud
and our local Bell phone company will always be lobbying Tallahassee
for a new rate hike, deregulation bill or clever tax loophole.
In
2003, BellSouth used a phone deregulation bill to raise rates on
Florida consumers by $300 million - the biggest price hike in history.
And in 2006, it exploited a regulatory loophole to stick consumers with
a $34 million bill for repairing their phone network because the
company failed to purchase storm insurance. Each time, the details
might be different, but the tale is as old as a dial tone - raise rates
and reduce consumer value, all while avoiding real competition.
Now,
AT&T (formerly BellSouth) wants us to believe it has become the
bulwark of competition, but only for the cable TV and broadband
markets. But a quick look at the legislation being pushed through the
Florida legislature reveals that this competition flag-waving is really
a game; AT&T's real agenda, it seems, is to eliminate the widely
supported non-discrimination laws by allowing the giant telephone
monopoly to offer services exclusively to the rich side of town, thus
severely limiting competition but fattening their bottom line.
There
are good reasons Floridians should be highly concerned about this kind
of betrayal of a company whose networks ratepayers have funded for
decades. For if it succeeds in ending the non-discrimination laws that
require cable television providers to serve all neighborhoods in their
service area - and not just cream-skim the affluent ones - it will be a
race to the bottom for all providers who will seek to take advantage of
the balkanization. At a minimum, AT&T's effort to repeal the only
universal service policy that applies to cable television and broadband
providers will, if successful, represent the end of meaningful
broadband competition in much of the state. Other providers, taking
their cue, will likely retrench their investments and seek to
cherry-pick only the higher-end communities as well.
Indeed,
AT&T has made no secret of its desire to serve fewer rather than
more customers in the state. The Bell monopoly told investors that they
intend to target so-called "high-value" customers - those who spend
more than $160 a month on communications services - while only about 5
percent of "low-value" customers - those who spend less than $110 a
month - would be able to get the services.
Seeking to divert our
attention from the frightening implications of their business plan, the
telephone giants suggest that the current local franchising rules are
to blame for any lack of competition in the cable market. But it's
clear that local franchising rules aren't stopping competition, with as
many as four providers of multi-channel video service in each market,
including satellite operators that have now earned thirty percent of
video customers.
Nor do telephone companies intend to lower
cable prices - another common promise they are using to sell Florida
legislators on their bill. Their prices for television have already
risen nearly ten percent, and they have admitted that Florida residents
should "expect no change" in their monthly bills.
Rather than
become supplicant to a narrow corporate agenda seeking a quick buck and
disenfranchising our citizenry from the benefits of broadband
competition, Florida should be thinking big. Halfway across the world,
Kenyan policymakers took bold steps, dismantling its
government-protected monopoly telecom operator, and now the country
will soon connect to an undersea fiber-optic cable to bring cheap
bandwidth and more jobs. Why should Florida do the opposite by letting
a reconstructed Ma Bell walk all over us? The stakes are high - this
debate is about how we compete in the future, how we create an educated
and empowered public.
It's a shame, then, that your lawmaker is
hearing more from the Bell lobbyists than from you - the consumer and
constituent. The Bells have unleashed a blizzard of television
advertisements and phony studies, all designed to promote the ruse that
local franchises are stopping them from investing. Meanwhile, AT&T
has backed phony "non-discrimination" lacking any teeth, allowing the
company to redline poor neighborhoods as long as they don't
discriminate within rich communities.
Ironically, they've
offered to repeal the 2003 law that allowed them to raise rates by $300
million in exchange for eliminating real non-discrimination rules. This
proposed trade-off should raise serious red flags. Like a used-car
salesman that sells you a lemon and then offers a store credit, perhaps
Floridians should be demanding a full refund instead.
Brad Ashwell is a legislative advocate for the
Florida Public Interest Research Group. He may be reached at (850) 224-3321 or brad@floridapirg.org.
